Project Report Our Place Enabling Communities to Characterise Their Neighbourhood
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Project report Our Place Enabling communities to characterise their neighbourhood January 2014 JanuaryCity Design Group 2014 This document has been produced by Peter Insole, Senior Archaeological Officer, City Design Group and Richard Guise, Context4D No portion of this document can be reproduced without the permission of City Design Group, Neighbourhoods and City Development, Bristol City Council © Crown Copyright and database rights 2014 Ordnance Survey 100023406 © City Design Group January 2014 Our Place January 2014 2 Project Report City Design Group Contents 1 Introduction 4 2 Case studies 13 1 Neighbourhood planning 14 2 Development plan document 16 3 Conservation area appraisal 18 4 Proposed public realm improvements 26 5 Historic landscape understanding 22 3 Follow on projects 33 4 Evaluation 37 5 Conclusion 47 Appendix 1 - Mapping: A user’s guide to 5 7 street surveys Appendix 2 - Examples of notation sheets 69 Appendix 3 - IHBC Southwest conference 75 Appendix 4 - Our Place project products 80 January 2014 Our Place City Design Group Project Report 3 Our Place January 2014 4 Project Report City Design Group Project report 1 Introduction January 2014 Our Place City Design Group Project Report 5 1 Introduction Summary Background The Our Place project was designed and managed The Bristol HER is managed and maintained by the by the Bristol Historic Environment Record (HER) City Council’s multidisciplinary City Design Group within the City Council’s City Design Group. The (CDG). The Group aims to help shape new quality project was funded by English Heritage and was run places and help to improve the quality of existing in partnership with Richard Guise and James Webb neighbourhoods (www.bristol.gov.uk/urbandesign). of Context4D. CDG is working with communities to achieve these aims through a programme of Conservation Area Our Place aimed to test a model approach that Character Appraisals, neighbourhood planning enables communities to identify and map the initiatives and landscape management projects. character of their local area. To achieve this a series The Group is actively involved with the DCLG of mapping events was programmed in a variety ‘Frontrunner’ (formerly ‘Vanguard’) Neighbourhood of locations and with diverse communities. The Planning project in Lockleaze where the council and project also aimed to develop methodologies for community are working in partnership to deliver capacity building within neighbourhoods and how sustainable neighbourhood improvements. these skills can be shared more widely. The Conservation and Historic Environment policy The project promoted an approach where local (BCS22) in the Bristol Core Strategy, adopted in understanding of character and wide community 2011, refers to the undertaking of a citywide urban engagement is thoroughly embedded in any context analysis. The document goes on to say neighbourhood planning or design process. that this analysis will contribute to the delivery of At the end of each mapping event an ‘Our Place’ the policy and should be informed by community document defining the character of the area was involvement. produced. These documents were published in With funding from the English Heritage HER21 draft form on the Design Bristol ning social media initiative CDG developed the award winning site http://designbristol.ning.com/ and comments ‘Know Your Place’ web resource (www.bristol. invited by the wider community. gov.uk/knowyourplace) which was launched in Each mapping process also identified assets of March 2011. The project to create the website heritage value and promoted nominations to and subsequent promotion (exhibitions, talks and Bristol’s Local List. conferences) has dramatically raised the profile of the HER and CDG. Our Place January 2014 6 Project Report City Design Group Fig 1 Localism and Heritage conference, 2012 From January 2013, the ‘Know Your Place’ resource has become the primary tool for creating a Local List for Bristol. Members of the public are able to use the website to nominate entries to the List and comment on nominations. In March 2012, CDG in partnership with English Heritage held the Localism and Heritage conference in Bristol. The event was attended by Local Authority professionals and representatives from local groups chiefly from the Bristol area, but also from across the UK. Work groups at the conference explored concerns, opportunities and potential impacts on heritage assets that may result from the localism agenda, particularly with regard to “… more needs to be done for young people the neighbourhood planning process (Localism and at school level,” Heritage: Working Together Conference Report, 2012, page 29 http://designbristol.ning.com/ Localism and Heritage: Working Together profiles/blogs/localism-and-heritage-conference- report ). One of the key conclusions from the day was that delegates felt there should be more opportunities to involve a wider community demographic including school children. Bristol has a range of active groups that are involved with neighbourhood issues. The multi- disciplinary nature of CDG and the innovative web resource ‘Know Your Place’ means that the team is ideally suited to help communities make informed decisions about their neighbourhoods. Our Place aimed to draw on these strengths and opportunities and develop a transferable methodology that embeds community participation in the placemaking process. January 2014 Our Place City Design Group Project Report 7 1 Introduction Aims and objectives The aims of the project were met through a series of public workshop events that involved a variety The project aimed to: of participants from local communities in three Encourage greater participation in distinct neighbourhoods: neighbourhood planning related activities Easton/Whitehall (mixed residential area related to developing an understanding of place consisting of Victorian terraces and inter- and heritage assets and effectively use this post war council housing outside of any understanding to inform proposals. Conservation Area and with a large Asian and To develop a transferable model or series of Somali population) model approaches to public participation in Fishponds (Medieval village subsumed within place related analyses. This model will include Victorian residential urban expansion, partly involving schools and school children and hard within the Stapleton and Frome Conservation to reach audiences as well as community and Area) neighbourhood groups. St Pauls/St Agnes (Inner City residential area To widen awareness of and involvement in consisting of Victorian terraced housing and the Local List process and drive more content late 20th century developments outside of any towards Know Your Place. Conservation Area, but within the area of the To create a greater understanding and proposed Bristol Central Area Action Plan). appreciation of Bristol’s heritage including a Westbury-on-Trym (historic village now more detailed understanding and appreciation subsumed within suburban interwar of the 20th century fabric of the city. development. Westbury-on-Trym is a To stimulate an awareness of neighbourhood Conservation Area that is in need of review. The qualities and sense of place and to identify their community are in the early stages of creating physical attributes. a neighbourhood design guide having decided One of the key objectives of the project was to against creating a Neighbourhood Plan). establish a common language that would be Prior to these workshops elements of the Our appropriate for community use, but also fit for Place approach were trialed at events at Lockleaze purpose in terms of planning policy and design (a post war housing estate currently involved in processes. the process of neighbourhood planning) and the Old City where public realm improvements are proposed. The project used Design Bristol ning social media site as a communication tool for both promotion of the individual activities and publication of the results. Our Place January 2014 8 Project Report City Design Group Fig 2 Community mapping 1 2 1 Whitehall 2 Oldbury Court 3 4 3 St Pauls 5 6 4 Westbury-on-Trym 5 Lockleaze 6 Old City January 2014 Our Place City Design Group Project Report 9 Fig 3 1 Introduction Notation publications 1 2 1 Notation, Gordon Cullen, 1967 2 The Image of the City, Kevin Lynch, 1960 The development of a tool for neighbourhood appraisal The mapping technique used in the Our Place project has been developed from earlier work for undergraduate and post graduate planning and urban design students’ coursework, by Richard Guise, Context4D. The aim was to expand the language to appraise urban places and use notation symbols to identify on maps the characteristics of particular townscapes. The mapping notation was initially took inspiration from Gordon Cullen’s publication ‘Notation’, in his short series published by Alcan, in 1967. (fig 3-1), and from Kevin Lynch in ‘The Image of the City’ (MIT 1960), (fig 3-2 and 3). These early “The notation symbols have been works have been adapted and expanded by Richard designed to apply to the majority of urban Guise, who has developed the symbols and tested environments, although there will always be them over many years, with students, professionals some areas which have other distinguishing and amenity groups. features, not included on the symbol sheet. The notation was further developed in a number The blank boxes on the sheets are indicators of design guides produced by Context4D, for a and reminders that groups should